Our 'date' was delightful. Henry was in good form, smiling a lot, giving his best 'smitten kitten' expression when he thought we were being observed or snapped. He'd advised me against choosing anything difficult or messy to eat, reminding me that getting papped with sauce round my gob wouldn't seem so funny in the morning.
For the first time, I experienced hostility from one of his fans, who asked for a photo. She practically shoved me out of the way, "just Henry," she'd barked at the bemused waiter who was taking the picture. She'd practically draped herself over him as he stood quietly in his usual good natured way.
We hadn't discussed his impending return to LA, which I was glad about. It seemed such an intractable problem that I was trying not to think about it. We kept the conversation light, Henry regaling me with funny stories from his boarding school days, making me laugh. I suspect he was making sure the paps got photos of the pair of us clearly having a good time.
As we left, they went crazy, sticking their lenses in our faces. "Guys, if you just calm down, you can have some proper pictures of us," Henry told them. We stood and posed, Henry holding me firmly round my shoulder, pulling me in close.
"So how long have you been together?" Asked one of the crowd.
"Not long," Henry replied, his voice confident and self assured.
"What happened to the last one?" Asked another.
"We were never back together," he answered, "it was just dinner. You guys read far too much into it. Sarah and I are together now."
A hundred further questions were yelled at us. Henry ignored them and lifted his hand to wave goodbye. "Ciao everyone. We're off now." We hopped into the waiting car and drove off.
"That seemed to go ok," I said.
"Yep. Think they got some good shots. It'll be round all the fan sites within the hour."
Back at the hotel, Henry opened a bottle of champagne. "We should drink a toast to your coming out," he said.
"That sounds wrong on so many levels," I laughed.
"Well you're public property now. We need to enjoy your last night of anonymity. He handed me a glass of bubbly. "To being publicly together." He raised it in a toast. I clinked with his and drank, the bubbles tickling the back of my nose.
"To being together," I agreed.
"And now I think we should consummate our decision," he purred, taking my glass and placing it on the table. He fixed me with a look so scorching, it would burn the sun.
My body responded immediately, "what would you like?" I asked playfully.
"You," he breathed, "naked and ready, on that bed."
I squealed as he grabbed me and kissed me hard. His sculptured lips seeming needing to kiss every inch of my lips, face and neck. As I gave in to the intense pleasure, the pesky seed of doubt wormed it's way back to the front of my mind. Not only would the whole world know we were together, until he leaves to go home, but I knew I'd never again meet a man like him. I would be ruined for anyone else.
The next morning, I was up the same time as Henry, which was unusual. He was still having to train hard everyday before going on set, so was generally up with the lark. I was the lazy one who liked to roll out of bed at nine.
I sat up in bed drinking my coffee, checking out all the comments from the pictures which had been released overnight. Some of his more eagle-eyed fans had spotted that I was the same girl as the London pics.
The comments were fairly tame, Henry sat on the bed while I read some out. "See, told you it'd be fine," he said, kissing me wetly on the cheek.
"They all seem to be more interested in discussing someone called Theodora," I told him, frowning at the screen. I read through some more threads. "Apparently she claims that she's your best friend."
"Never heard of her," he laughed, "just another fantasist." He took the laptop off me, and pulled me into a hug. "I'll see you on set. Be good."
After he'd gone, I carried on checking all the various sites. Initial reception had been ok, so I turned my attention back to the weird girl claiming to be his best friend. It didn't take long to get onto her twitter feed, she obviously wasn't aware of my name. I read through streams of tweets listing out how she was the best friend of many celebrities, Henry included. I smiled as I read her tweets that morning claiming to be flying first class to Florence for a lunch date with Henry, clearly unaware that he would be in Rome having lunch with me. Feeling rather mean for laughing at her along with other Henry fans, I clicked off her twitter feed, and concentrated on my emails.
Clive had been delighted with the pictures, remarking that I 'hadn't let the side down'. I huffed a bit, but composed a nice reply, thanking him for his support. I hadn't spotted any PR steering going on, but that wasn't to say it wasn't being done. To be honest, I just figured everyone was relieved that I was female.
My own twitter feed had exploded, messages of support and advice from friends and colleagues mingled with tweets full of questions and curiosity from his fan base. One jumped out at me though. #keep your hands off Henry or you die bitch#
I shuddered. I'd known that sort of thing would happen, but it was still shocking. I screenshotted the message before blocking the sender, wondering why anyone would behave like that.
By the time I met Henry on set, I'd forgotten all about it.
